But he didn’t know what to do about it. At thirty-three, with eight years of university education behind him, he had spent far too many hours in academic pursuits and too few learning the rituals of courtship.
The program for the evening included a film study of the major UNGY projects, a banquet, and a floorshow, followed by dancing to a twelve-piece band. Ordinarily, he would have gone only to the film, if that. But there was a good chance that he’d see Rita Marzano at one of the social functions.
She was last in line at the hotel’s exhibition hall, where the film was to be shown. She seemed to be alone, and she smiled crookedly when she saw him.
With a candor that he could not control and a blush that he hoped she didn’t notice, he said, “I’ve been looking for you all day.”
“I got bored and went shopping. Do you like my new dress?”
The dress couldn’t enhance her beauty, but it complemented all that nature had given her. It was floor-length, long-sleeved, green with beige buttons. Her eyes picked up the shade of the dress while her auburn hair seemed brighter by contrast. The neckline revealed a décolletage uncommon at the dry conferences of scientists, and the clinging, silky fabric vaguely outlined her nipples. With little effort she could have entranced him as quickly as a flute entrances a cobra.
“I like it,” he said, trying not to stare.
“Why were you looking for me all day?”
“Well, of course, the book. I’d like to talk about it if you have a free minute.”
“Minute?”
“Or an hour.”
“Or an evening?”
Damn if he wasn’t blushing again. He felt like an Indiana farm boy. “Well…”
She looked along the exhibition-hall line, turned to Harry again, and grinned. “If we skip out on this, we’ll have all evening to talk.”
“Aren’t you interested in the film?”
“No. Besides, dinner will be awful. The floorshow will be too conventional. And the dance band will be out of tune.”
“Dinner together?”
“That would be lovely.”
“Drinks first at Deux Magots?”
“Marvelous.”
“Lapérouse for dinner?”
She frowned. “That’s pretty expensive. You needn’t take me first class. I’m as happy with beer as with champagne.”
“This is a special occasion. For me if not for you.”
Dinner was perfect. Paris offered no more romantic atmosphere than that in the upstairs room at Lapérouse. The low ceiling and the murals on the crack-webbed walls made the restaurant warm and cozy. From their table they had a view of the night-clad city, and below them lay the light-stained, oily river like a storybook giant’s discarded black silk scarf. They ate flawless oie rôtie aux pruneaux, and for dessert there were tiny tender strawberries in a perfect zabaglione. Throughout the meal, they unraveled an endless skein of conversation, immediately as comfortable as friends who had been dining together for a decade. Halfway through the roast goose, Harry realized that they had not yet discussed her book but had rambled on about art, literature, music, cooking, and much more, without once finding themselves at a loss for words. When he finished his cognac, he was reluctant to let the night end so soon.
She shared that reluctance. “We’ve been Frenchmen for dinner. Now let’s be tourists.”
“What do you have in mind?”
The Crazy Horse Saloon was an all-out assault on the senses. The customers were Americans, Germans, Swedes, Italians, Japanese, Arabs, British, Greeks, even a few Frenchmen, and their conversations intertwined to produce a noisy babble frequently punctuated with laughter. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, perfume, and whiskey. When the band played, it generated enough sound to shatter crystal. The few times Harry wanted to speak to Rita, he was forced to scream, although they were just two feet apart, on opposite sides of a minuscule cocktail table.
The stage show made him forget the noise and smoke. The girls were gorgeous. Long legs. Full, high-set breasts. Tiny waists. Galvanizing faces. More variety than the eye could take in. More beauty than the mind could easily comprehend or the heart appreciate. Dozens of girls, most bare-breasted. All manner of costumes, most skimpy: leather straps, chains, furs, boots, jeweled dog collars, feathers, silk scarves. Their eyes were heavily mascaraed, and some wore sequined designs on their faces and bodies.